The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King. E. T. A. Hoffmann

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      FOREWORD

      The story of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King” is so full of word pictures that no one in the whole world could draw them all, though each picture is so beautiful and full of color that one can scarcely resist trying to.

      Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann wrote this story in Germany more than a hundred years ago—for his own pleasure, we imagine—and he put into it all the beautiful things he could think of, dolls and castles, candies and candles, crimson lakes and sparkling gardens and hundreds and hundreds of fairy people, and comical people too.

      The story is most exciting, all about the long battle between the Nutcracker and the Mouse-King with his seven heads and seven golden crowns, the battle that with Marie’s help ended in victory for the Nutcracker. To show his gratitude for her kindness, the Nutcracker takes Marie through her father’s overcoat sleeve to the Land of Dolls.

      It is in this part of the book that the author has the greatest fun making word pictures. There is Lemonade River, villages of sugar cookies and transparent candy, gates of almonds and raisins, confetti forests, thousands of little people shouting, laughing and joking; and everywhere a fragrance of oranges and roses.

      The gay imaginings in the book, especially those in the Land of Dolls, amused Peter Tchaikovsky, the great Russian musician, and he has written the music of “The Nutcracker Suite” all about this tale. The Chinese dance, the waltz of the Flowers and the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy are all drawn from these chapters of Marie’s visit to Toy Land with the Nutcracker. And you can see the gay little people when you hear the music, just as you can when you read the story.

      We two who have been translating the story and doing the drawings enjoyed ourselves more than tongue can tell. Now you begin the book and see how happy you are.

      EMMA L. BROCK.